


a life in the day

by alekszova



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, please forgive me i haven't finished the game i just wanted to write them, the boys live happily on a farm together, with their little army of animals and their tiny little vegetable garden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: a day in the life.or—Arthur thinks about his relationship with Charles from beginning to present (and possible futures) during the course of his day.





	a life in the day

**9:08 A.M.**

When he wakes, Charles isn't there. There's an empty space beside him where he should be. Where he was the night before. Arthur had curled up as close as he could manage, fitted his face into the crook of Charles' neck and left a whisper of a kiss against the skin as his hands slipped across his torso and felt the scars and muscles beneath before falling asleep to the rhythm of Charles' heartbeat so close to his own. It had been quiet and perfect. The both of them too exhausted from their day of work to do much other than pass out the moment their eyes closed.

And this morning should’ve been a continuation of that. Spent lying together lazily, both complaining about the work they’d have to do the moment they left the comfort of the bed, but lingering instead. Putting it off further and further. They’ve had days like it before. So many that Arthur can vividly predict the exact details in the way they’d spend it. Him, tracing shapes against Charles’ chest. Gentle kisses against the top of his head, the caress of hands against the bare skin of his back until the sun finished rising and the glow of the light in the room turned golden and warm and threatened with the passage of time slipping too far beyond their control. The list of things they need to do, the things needed to make the winter more survivable, ever-present and ever threatening. They can’t risk a few hours like this. Not when the days go by so quickly. Not when they have so much work to still do.

It’s not even fall yet. The warmth of summer is still hot and sticky and cruel. But they had slacked off the year before and paid for it more than either of them wished. Money in their pockets disappearing fast in exchange for the high priced foods to get them through the frigid and deathly weather until they could fill their garden with vegetables again, until they could venture out into the woods and hunt when the animals came out of their hibernation.

In the winter, their bed was piled high with blankets and furs to keep them warm. Things they slowly had to start sacrificing to fill their wallets again or use to keep Taima and Peaches warm. They used one another for warmth, pressed close together. Even in the summer, even when they kicked off the sheets and the blankets and eventually would sometimes drift from each other, they would still be close by. Touching in some way. Maybe not the close cuddling they would do in the winter, but still contact between them. They never go to far from one another. Too many times being pushed apart by distance or watchful eyes that even when the concept of another body within a few feet of him sounds like a terrible idea, he gives in. Because it’s Charles. Because Arthur has spent too long forcing distance between them until now.

Summer mornings should be spent waking up close by, the cool air of the night drifting away, a hand making small movements across his shoulder. It’s what he’d prefer. It’s what he wants. It’s the things he loves the most. That no matter what season it is, he can wake up and Charles will be there with a soft smile.

But he isn’t here. The bed is empty and cold despite the harsh heat of the sun beating down through the windows, bright white light blinding him, telling him that the lack of clouds in the sky means the air outside is going to be almost like a choking collar.

It isn’t an impossible thing. Charles has left the bed in the morning before Arthur before. It’s just rare and every time it makes his stomach sink. Takes Arthur back to the days when even the times they were at the camp together, they never got to be together as much as they wanted. The times they had to be quiet and sneak around and hide themselves from others. The risk of anyone finding out was too large. It didn’t matter if they were friends. It didn’t matter how long any of them knew each other. Arthur wouldn’t risk a single soul finding out. He weighed the possibilities and they came out too imbalanced and too unpredictable to consider it.

They lived off of the tiny moments in between. When people weren’t looking or some type of celebration was going on and they could sneak away to a small place off the side of the camp and steal kisses from one another while the others laughed unknowingly on the other side of a line of trees or a wagon. Camp wasn’t a place they allowed themselves much. Brief things, like their first kiss. Quick and rushed and broken apart before they could ever really be real.

Their first kiss was born out of fear. Fear that one of them could have died, fear that Charles worry over Arthur’s life wasn’t founded on a romantic basis.

Just before they left Horseshoe Overlook, coming back after too many guns fired at him. Adrenaline racing through his veins as he ran away on his own. The others up ahead, him by himself. Always on his own. Always left behind. Arthur didn’t come back right away. Slower. Stopping somewhere off the beaten path in the opposite direction in case anyone followed him. Hiding away in a section of trees as he made sure his horse was okay. Spending time feeding Peaches bits of apple and coaxing the worry away from her, hoping she didn’t sense it in him.

And when he got back, when Charles looked at him the way he had, when Charles followed Arthur back out into the edge of the treeline in silence. He wants to say he doesn’t remember how far he got. That the quiet overwhelmed him, that the presence of Charles behind him threw off his ability to account for time and steps. But he remembers. He remembers that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, the knowing that Charles had something to say to him and it wasn’t going to be kind. He remembers how many steps he took and he counted the seconds and the minutes in his head until Charles started talking. He remembers the number. Has it written out of context on one of the pages in his journal. The steps and the seconds and the minutes all leading up to when they would change their relationship forever.

Not really the kiss, not quite. It was mostly the way Charles was talking to him. Yelling, really. Except it wasn’t quite the way Arthur had heard him yell before. It was strange and foreign and he doesn’t know how to explain it even now, even after hearing Charles yell at him like that multiple times. Not quite a yell. Voice loud and dominating but not quite angry. Filled with worry. Concern coating his words in a thick layer, covering up the fury because the fury was not the important aspect of his words or his tone, it was the complete anxiety over the fact that Arthur might’ve been hurt or killed and there would be little way of the rest of the gang ever finding out which. That each hour, minute, second Arthur was gone it was another drop in the bucket of possibility that Arthur wouldn’t come back at all.

They left him there, but that wasn’t something that Arthur was entirely angry about and it wasn’t the place that Charles directed his own anger towards. It was that Arthur took the long way back. His arrival wasn’t immediate. He let them worry when he could’ve taken the quickest way here like the others, coming at full-speed to make sure everyone knew he was alright.

Arthur didn’t apologize—not just yet. He listened. Didn’t say a single word. He was stuck on the fact that someone cared enough to yell at him for nearly throwing his life away for Dutch. But that’s simply who he was and who he’d always be. It’s what his place in Dutch’s gang was for. He waited until Charles stopped talking and then he stepped forward and kissed him. Quick and rushed and broken before it could really be real. And then he whispered the apology. The apology for the kiss and the apology for making him worry and the apology for every little thing he had done to Charles that he hadn’t deserved. Everything and nothing stuffed to fit inside two words said so quietly he wasn’t even sure if Charles had heard him, because after, when Arthur pulled away, they both went in separate directions as if it hadn’t happened. Quiet settling back between them in the layer of fog that he knew meant things were different between them now, and it wouldn’t ever be the same again.

When Charles kissed him back, it wasn’t for another week. The two spending the time packing their things, tying up loose ends and getting ready to leave Valentine and Horseshoe Overlook for somewhere else. They barely talked, but they looked at each other constantly. Catching each other’s gazes, holding them sometimes before tossing them aside and pretending they never existed to begin with. Arthur started to tell himself the red on his cheeks came from sunburns and not from the embarrassment of it all. Arthur Morgan doesn’t get embarrassed.

But he did. He still does. Little things. Things he likes to ignore, like their second kiss. When they stopped before reaching their final destination. Charles catching him off-guard, coming to the side of the road and leaving Taima before walking off into the middle of the trees quiet like he always does and Arthur followed him. Further and further like they had before. Arthur aware of the silence between them only broken up by the sound of footsteps snapping branches fallen from the trees above. The wind moving through the leaves, the animals and the insects in the distance. Even the quiet sound of their horses muffled as they went in further.

He called out to him. Three times before realizing Charles wouldn’t answer and he decided to stop. When he finally caught up with him, Charles turned around and gave him a look that Arthur couldn’t read, but he was never very good at reading people. Never good at understanding emotions or how people worked. Things that went beyond the simplicity of greed and violence got too tangled in things Arthur tried to avoid. Love was complicated and messy and never worked out in his favor and he thought, even as Charles stepped closer, even as Charles reached out to him and pulled him forward, that Charles hated him.

Before their first kiss, Arthur thought they were friends. After, he thought he crossed a line that he would never be able to redraw. And then, when Charles kissed him back, when he held him tenderly and close and kissed him with a sense of urgency and tenderness that almost felt violent, he realized he was an idiot and he felt his cheeks grow red and he was aware that even if he was stupid at least Charles was kissing him and as long as Charles was going to kiss him everything felt okay and right with the world.

It took him a while to realize that the kissing part was unnecessary. Just spending time with Charles made everything feel like it was going to be okay, even at the worst of times.

**9:17 A.M.**

Arthur rises from the bed slowly, stretching and aching. His body sore from chopping wood and moving it from one part of their piece of land to the next. He changes his clothes slowly to keep the pain as minimal as he can. A shirt stolen from Charles, smelling of the woods and clean air. He inhales it as if the scent couldn't possibly belong to anyone but the man he loves.

He glances through the window as he dresses. Their cabin is surrounded by trees on all sides except this one. Built on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the water below. A path to the right carved in the land with stone steps leading down to the river below. A long stretch of sand and a boat pulled up and resting there. They haven't started work on building a dock yet, but Arthur reminisces of the days spent building that boat. The trial and error. The boats sunken to the bottom of the river. The two of them laughing as they tried to keep it afloat long enough to get back to shore but failing and swimming the rest of the way on their own. Collapsing against the sand and tangling together in kisses, prying off their clothes and leaving them there as their hands found skin to hold onto and hair to pull and lips to never let a breath escape unless a moan was placed in between them.

It was a terrible idea. Sand sticking to their skin and clothes and making it difficult to get them back on for their trip up to the cabin, but it was worth it. It's always worth it with Charles. Leaving the others behind, coming here, sacrificing the high-stakes and often addictive life of crime for one of quiet days and soft smiles. Filled with a new project or a task to accomplish. Building a chicken coop or a barn or the fence that starts to wrap around all of it. Even just shelves and benches and tables for their home. The two of them made the bed frame together, Charles carefully measuring because the last thing that Arthur was tasked with finding exact measurements for, he had simply guessed and the chairs around the kitchen table were a mix-match of too tall and too short or too narrow and too wide. All different and all not very comfortable.

Arthur passes through. Saying a quiet good morning to the cat sitting on the countertop, watching him go. She has black splotches on her fur. One on her ear, one on her mouth, another on her front leg, another on her back paw. She looks like a little cow. A cat dressing up to play in the fields like she’s one of them. Luna never leaves her spot, though. She is always inside until nightfalls and she sneaks past them on their way in for the night to chase after the mice and the squirrels. Opposite of the dog, little Daisy with her bright golden fur, racing around in circles after butterflies or laying quietly and patiently as Charles does his work. Even if Arthur was the one that brought her home, Daisy follows Charles around like—

Well, a lost puppy.

He makes his way outside, finding Charles in the garden like he suspected he would be. Their mornings always start the same. Rising from bed, dressing, tending to the animals before tending to the garden. Charles glances over to the door as it swings shut behind him, closing with a louder bang than he intended. They need to find a way to quiet it. Or, maybe, Arthur just needs to stop slamming doors. It gives off the wrong impression. Like he’s angry. And he isn’t. He doesn’t entirely mind that Charles left him, he just minds the memories that it made him recall. Nights where they parted in the dark after sneaking away into the woods and then having to pretend that they didn’t want to curl up close to each other like they do on their hunting trips. Laying there in the dark awake and alone and too aware that there is something missing in his life that he could so easily get if he actually required it as much as he felt he did.

“You left me,” Arthur says, a fragile hope coming with the words that they don’t sound too angry. He knows his voice, he knows how things come out sometimes more vicious than he intends and even after all this time with Charles he doesn’t want to be mistaken. Sometimes it feels like if he does a single thing wrong Charles would leave him. Maybe it’s because Charles feels almost perfect to him. Not put-on-a-pedestal, can-do-no-wrong perfect just—

Good. Better. Incredible.

Charles-perfect. A new brand of it, named just after him.

And Arthur feels unworthy more often than he’d like. There is so much blood on his hands. So much ruthless and unnecessary death.

"You needed your rest."

Arthur moves past the outline of posts that make up the perimeter of the garden. Not built yet. Just posts in intervals around the area, waiting to be complete. He’s careful not to step on any of the plants. Careful to avoid all the things that him and Charles so carefully buried in the dirt not too long ago. He reaches out across the distance, hooks a finger through Charles’ belt loop, tugs him back against his body before moving his arms to wrap around his waist. It takes barely a second for Charles to melt against him and Arthur presses a kiss against his shoulder.

"And you need yours," Arthur says, squeezing him. “You should’ve woken me. I could've helped you with this."

"You don't know a thing about gardening, Arthur."

He smiles a little, hiding it away for himself. No. He doesn't. His knowledge in this is limited but he doesn't really care about being out here for the sake of potatoes or lettuce or whatever the fuck Charles has planted recently. He just wants to soak up all the time he can with him. Make up for the time they lost.

“I know some. And you could teach me. Give me an excuse.”

“An excuse for what?”

He doesn’t want to say to spend time with him. Maybe a little embarrassed that there never seems to be enough time for them to be together. Sometimes it feels like it's slipping through his fingers and he can't hold on. Some pressing weight telling Arthur again and again that there isn't enough of it in the world for them to be together.

“I need to expand my skill set,” he says instead. “Add gardenin’ to my repertoire.”

“I think your repertoire is quite alright,” Charles says. “Especially since I don’t think you’d listen to me anyway.”

“What?” Arthur asks, feigning hurt. “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“You would do what you always do.”

“And what’s that?”

Charles goes quiet, but it is the type of silence that he knows means there’s a smile on Charles’ face. Something big and bright and magical. Something that is as equally infectious as it is rare. He doesn’t answer Arthur’s question and he doesn’t need to, although he would obtain some small joy from the thought that Charles would have to say it aloud. How when Charles tried to teach Arthur to carve animals out of wood or learning what herbs in the area where dangerous and shouldn’t be touched or consumed, Arthur would watch him and the lesson would barely sink in. Preferring to listen to his voice but not the meaning behind the words and watch the way his mouth moved and how his hands turned the pages and unlike how it was before, at camp, before they kissed, when he tried to suffocate the feelings in his chest and trade them for something new and more acceptable by the people around him, he would steal Charles away and kiss him. They’d get distracted from their wood carvings and their books and the things they were meant to be doing around them and instead fall prey to wandering hands and clothes pulled off each other’s bodies and the lesson would be abandoned for another day when the same thing would happen on repeat.

He’d like that. He’d like that right now. It almost makes him push for it. Pull on Charles’ shirt the way he usually does, kiss the spot on his neck that seems like something that Charles can’t ignore. It feels like cheating, sometimes, when he kisses that spot. Because it always makes Charles make that noise that lights up his insides like a fire.

But he doesn’t, even when Charles turns around to face him, tipping his chin up with his hand and pressing a soft kiss against his lips. Not speaking the answer to Arthur’s question but providing an example.

“Sorry I left you alone,” he says quietly. “You looked tired.”

He nods, barely, “Maybe you should’ve slept in, too.”

“Maybe,” Charles says. “Maybe tomorrow. You can sneak away and I’ll find you out in the field feeding the horses.”

Arthur nods again, knowing that even if Charles could allow himself to sleep past the sunrise, Arthur wouldn’t leave him there by himself. He’d like to say that he would relish in the time being able to have a lazy morning with nothing forcing them out of bed—but he knows that isn’t true. He just simply wouldn’t wake up. Every morning starts with Charles being the one to coax him out of his dreams. He would keep sleeping until some part of him recognized the loss of Charles beside him, like this morning, or until he was so thoroughly rested that the sun might have already decided to set again.

He’s a heavy sleeper around the people he’s comfortable with. Nothing can wake him. It’s nice knowing that he’s able to let his walls down that much. At the camp, he would be able to sleep through celebrations and laughter and people yelling at one another, would wake in the quiet early mornings to do chores around the camp before leaving to tend to other matters. Even with Charles it’s similar. There might no longer be the loud noises of a party or a gathering around a campfire, but Arthur still has his late nights with him when they sit on the back porch overlooking the river, fireflies lighting up the air like stars, the quiet sound of the world around them. Owls hooting and animals coming and going back to their dens. It’s not quite the same in terms of noise—but it’s the same feeling. The same peacefulness and contentedness he felt when he laid on his bed and listened to Javier playing a song and the others singing along.

But the matter of whether or not this would be a realistic occurrence isn’t something that crops into mind when Arthur imagines a day tomorrow when he’s outside first, feeding carrots or oatcakes to Taima or Peaches. Looking over to see Charles outside the front door, a little bit tired, a mug in his hand, watching him like he did when they were at the camp. Back when their lives weren’t as interwoven as they are now.

“I don’t think I’m as good at sneakin’ away as you.”

“Probably not,” Charles replies. “But that’s alright.”

He nods, just a tiny thing again, leaning up to steal another kiss, letting this one last a little bit longer. He still has fears sometimes, kissing Charles out here. Outside of the house feels dangerous, sometimes. The only moments he can truly feel safe in kissing him is when they’re hidden by trees or out on the river where nobody is watching them. Even now, hidden by the house, it doesn’t feel like they have as much privacy as they should. They both have their nightmares, they both have their wandering thoughts, and neither have quite gotten comfortable enough to voice every single one out loud. And Arthur is too afraid to talk about this. The fear and the dreams he has of people coming by and hurting them.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” Arthur replies, aware that Charles can tell when he’s upset even if he doesn’t press to find out what lies beneath it. “You never said good morning to me and it’s really throwin’ me off.”

Charles smiles, a smile that tells him that he is placating this lie that Arthur is telling him but also one that does it’s best to comfort something he doesn’t know anything about, “I’m sorry. Good morning, Arthur.”

“Mornin’,” he mumbles. “You gotta kiss me again. You always kiss me in the mornings.”

Charles nods and leans forward, pressing a kiss against his forehead, another against his lips. Something short and sweet and a little bit too perfect, does a little bit too much to both sway the fears in his chest and reaffirm them. The thought that he could have this so carelessly ripped from him. Something innocent that could be construed so viciously and hurtfully.

It’s why they left. It’s why they couldn’t have stayed. Too many nights thinking about the harm that could be done to them and too many days listening to Charles talk about a dream of living somewhere in the woods, far away from people, up on a cliff but with enough land that they could have a barn for the horses, space for sheep and cows and chickens. A little garden. A place they could call their own.

They have it now. Part of it. Enough of it to realize it into something solid.

Arthur pulls away, “I have work to do.”

“I know,” Charles says, holding onto him tight, keeping him there, rooted to the spot. “Stay for a minute, will you?”

And he really doesn’t think he can say no.

So he leans back in, his own turn to melt against Charles’ touch. Feel the thing he missed this morning—a hand moving up his back, threading through his hair. More kisses left against his forehead and he sighs. Sighs with every bit of happiness inside of him knowing how quickly it will replenish if Charles just keeps holding him like this.

**10:33 A.M.**

The chickens cluck at him as he passes by with more wood to take towards the barn. Less than half-built, mostly a shabby structure they’re still trying to put together, but it’s coming along. Every day they make even the tiniest bit of progress it feels like an accomplishment. Neither of them have built anything before they came here, nothing really. They slept under the stars around a campfire as they went through the steps it took to create the chicken coop just off the side of the farm and the fence around the layout of the barn is falling apart after less than a year of standing up. Neither of them minded sleeping outside, not when it gave them the excuse to look up at the night sky and talk about constellations and things that might not possibly exist. Arthur remembers overhearing some of the girls at camp talk about creatures out in the galaxy around them. What they might be like and if they watch the humans below. Charles says the chances that they’re the only living organisms in the entirety of existence is unlikely, and Arthur feels he needs to agree, not based on logic but based on the fear that out of all the life that could possibly exist, why do they deserve it? It’s terrifying thinking about being that alone. It took him years and years to realize he didn’t like the concept of isolation as much as he thought he did when arguments started up in camp and never seemed to cease. When the presence of so many other people and their trivial problems started to seem frustrating and suffocating.

Especially when all he wanted was this. To run away with Charles and not have to deal with everything else. Their relationship after their second kiss took a turn. A few months where all they did was have sex. Making excuses to go on long hunting trips together, anything they could so they could spare a few hours together and have more than a few kisses stolen in the middle of the night. The sex was like their first kisses. Urgent but tender or fast and quick. Anxiety looped between the two of them. The need to be together but the fear of getting caught. It was an undercurrent in everything they did then. Wondering if their glances lingered a little too long. Wondering if they weren’t as careful and hidden as they thought they were. Wondering if someone might see something between them and tell someone else despite every precaution that they took.

Fear is a powerful motive. He knew that. He knew it his entire life. It’s exactly why Arthur is who he is.

But here, they can hold hands which they were never really allowed to do except for a few seconds or a few minutes. Here, Arthur can lean against Charles’ weight in bed and hold his hands and remark on how well they fit together. Both of their hands calloused and worn despite starting to wear gloves when working. They have twin burn marks on their palms from cooking, mirrored scars on the insides of their hands despite being received years apart. Charles had his before Arthur ever met him. He’d always leave a kiss against it after sex. He didn’t know why. It just felt like something he wanted to do. Something to show that he could be soft and tender, that he could be something other than what the others had built him for and expected him to be.

When Arthur got his own, Charles was the one to help bandage it and he left a kiss against it every night and every morning. Most of the time even more often. Sporadically through the day when they got close to one another, telling him that since he couldn’t hold the hand anymore, he still wanted to show how much he’d like to. Arthur always wondered if that was true. If the kiss was simply a sign of affection to replace the loss of being able to hold one of his hands, when they more often held the others together instead, or if he kissed the scar to mimic the way Arthur kissed Charles’.

It mattered very little to him. He liked it. He likes the brush of Charles’ lips against any part of his body, whether it be the palm of his hand or the bare skin of his shoulder or the insides of his thighs that always makes Arthur’s eyes close and let out a tiny breathy sigh like the one he had when Charles told him to stay in the garden a little while longer.

He pauses by his pile of wood, looking back over to the garden, left alone now. Vegetables that need to be taken already piled into a woven basket and taken inside, and the weeds pulled. Before, when he’d looked over, Charles had walked around the space in a small circle, resting hands atop the posts that would later be used for the rest of the perimeter. He knows that look. It’s the look of some type of unhappiness, and Arthur can see it even from over here. The garden is too small—Charles will want to expand it sooner rather than later. Food is important, he’d say, like he always does. Balanced meals are important. They need to make the garden bigger to sustain them and the animals that wander around the land.

But now Charles isn’t there. He’s left the garden for the woods. Venturing further out to find other trees to chop down. Wood to bring back here to help build the side of their barn. It isn’t too big—enough for the horses to be safe from the rain and the snow which they haven’t been afforded much of. They have a hastily pulled together tarp over wooden posts to help, but it does little. Every time the weather gets bad he knows Charles worries for them, always on the brink of bringing them inside like he had with the chickens last winter. They should’ve built the barn then—they had underestimated how much work it would be. They underestimated how much work it would all be.

Or maybe, simply, it was just  _ Arthur  _ that had. He always looked at a finished product and considered whether or not it could really be that difficult. A finished building looks so simple. Four walls and a roof. Half the places he’s been in, the floor haven’t even been entirely finished. Sometimes exposed dirt as the surface beneath his feet. Not here. Not with Charles making sure everything is as safe and well-built as possible. Double-checking information and blueprints, having Arthur sketch things out in detail in his journal. Most of the pages now filled with pictures of the chickens or the barn or the cabin. Future additions they want to have beyond their bedroom and tiny kitchen. Space to grow.

He remembers, painfully, of the nights they would lay in bed and his thoughts would wander to Jack. He misses the kid. Misses feeling like he could take care of someone. Wonders if it’s normal how much he craves a child he would never be able to have. It feels terrible—a pain that sometimes makes him succumb to the violent need to cry. But he never does. It isn’t who he is. He will refuse to cry until the day he dies, he thinks. Unless something happens to Charles. Even thinking about something happening to Charles makes him have to bite back the pain of it all.

But he thinks, maybe, in a dozen years, the world will change. Maybe him and Charles will be able to be happy. No fear lurking in the shadows. Or maybe in a hundred years, a thousand, a billion, their souls can be reborn and they will find each other again. Arthur doesn’t believe in love at first sight—even if the moment he saw Charles he felt something shift inside of him—but he believes in soulmates. Something he entirely puts the blame upon Charles. He never allowed himself to entertain such romantic ideas as  _ soulmates  _ before Charles appeared in his life and seemed to prove him wrong with every smile and every touch and every kiss between them _.  _ But Arthur doesn’t know how else to describe someone like Charles. Someone that could understand every need and want and desire even if it meant space or quiet or nights like the one before and days spent working instead of kissing and sex.

**12:23 P.M.**

They divide the work. Both of them make everything as balanced as they can. It wasn’t easy—primarily because both of them have learned to do things without asking for help. Keeping to themselves and doing as much as possible so as not to bother others. Mostly, however, Arthur is aware of his need to avoid help from another person is to avoid showing a weakness. When their relationship started to unfurl into something a little more solid and a little more real and things like  _ I don’t know what I’d do without you  _ started to get said more and more frequently and they both stepped closer and closer to telling the other they loved them, they allowed them to help one another. Arthur going with Charles on hunting trips wasn’t solely based in being alone with him, it was also Charles’ way of letting him in on something that used to be just his own, or even just something Arthur did by himself, too. In the mornings, Charles would be there with him to take the hay to the horses and the sacks over to Pearson. They’d part their ways but sometimes, if Charles slipped away to chop wood before Arthur could, he’d linger around, pretending to busy himself with the ledger and the money while watching him at work.

It wasn’t all that different to how it was before Arthur kissed him. Little glances and looks and saying things that went beyond just the friendship everyone thought they had—including each other. They knew now. There was something else to the words they said and the looks they gave. Charles knew when he caught Arthur’s eye why he was watching him, probably even knew how often Arthur wanted to walk over there and ask him to go hunting just so they could have a few hours someplace elsewhere he could act on the thoughts in his head.

But their little things helping each other at the camp were different than their help around their little farm. It was unspoken or coded with something else. Arthur tagging along on hunting trips was said under the impression that they got to be together, even if Charles’ yes meant he was allowing Arthur into a space that he once protected fiercely. Arthur saying  _ thank you  _ instead of  _ don’t bother, I got it  _ when Charles picked up a stack of hay or a sack of flour or took the ax before he could was an allowance that wasn’t quite so explicit as  _ can you help me with something? _

Now it’s different. Ever since they arrived here, after a few minor injuries, they learned. They learned to ask for help getting the chickens together and cooking their meals and doing the simplest of things. It was a strange thing to fall into. Strange to go from a rhythm of never feeling like the asking was necessary to going through the rhythm of saying it until the words came out comfortable and easy and Arthur always knew that the answer would be a yes even before Charles even got the chance to say it. They said their thanks and their welcomes like a song, back and forth, sometimes repaid with kisses and smiles. Sometimes with an  _ of course  _ or a  _ no problem  _ instead of a  _ you’re welcome. _

They always cook together. It likely isn’t the best use of their time, but whenever one of them is in the kitchen the other is, too. Sometimes it’s just because Arthur is scrubbing away the remains of food on a bowl or a plate and setting it aside to dry again. Sometimes it’s Charles feeding Luna or Daisy while Arthur chops up vegetables or helps kneed the dough to make the rolls. Sometimes, and most often, it’s the two working in tandem. Moving about the small space in a dance they’ve both grown to hate and love. Love, because it’s nice knowing how familiar they are with one another. Knowing the pattern of the other’s movements, being able to act in time to move out of the way or trust that they don’t have to slow their step because they know before they get too close that the other will have shifted from the spot already. Hate, because the space is too small. Tiny and cramped.

The kitchen is the first part of the cabin they built. Something small just to keep them out of the cold or the rain when the tent and the campfire and the bedrolls no longer did enough to protect them from the elements. Their bedroom is bigger than the kitchen—they keep talking about expanding it. Take down the wall and push it outwards or turn this part of the cabin into a storage room—line the walls with so many shelves that they can stock full of their canned goods and hang their tools on the side. Keep everything neat and organized. But they don’t have the time. They never have the time. So they suffer through this tiny cramped kitchen, stealing kisses when they can and when they’re close enough—which is almost always.

“I’m going into town,” Arthur says, even though they’ve had this conversation a few times in the last week. “Going to get the stuff on our list. Have anything you want to add?”

“Already added,” Charles replies, taking a seat opposite him. Behind him, the cat eats quietly. Her spot on the counter designated only to her. A little bed and a pillow like Luna is a child instead of an animal. Right next to the window, out of the way of where Daisy can try and steal her food. The dog is louder, on the floor by the door, blocking the way out as if she won’t race back out into the field the second her food is gone.

“You want to go with?” he asks, turning his attention away from them. He’s asked this question a thousand times. Every time he leaves for the store. The answer is always different. Not quite a pattern he can predict. Sometimes it’s a yes and sometimes it’s a no and sometimes it’s even a no until Arthur is leaving and he can hear Charles coming up behind him, Taima faster than Peaches and right beside him, telling Arthur that he’s changed his mind.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t mind that Charles is unpredictable. He likes it. He likes that sometimes they can exist without the other by their side. It’s strange—because really, when Arthur thinks about it, there is nothing more he wants in the world than to be by Charles’ side. But he knows that distance is sometimes necessary. Giving space to think and time to be apart. Be their own person. Exist outside of one another. He made that mistake once. Existed solely to be the lover of someone else and when it ended, it crushed him. Left him not knowing where he stood or who he was. Broke him, really. He doesn’t think Charles fixed him. Just patched himself up enough that Arthur could heal on his own.

“You have suspenders on the list.”

Arthur tilts his head, “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ll go.”

“Because of the suspenders?”

“Yes.”

“You think I can’t pick out my own?”

“I think you can,” Charles says, reaching over to him, grasping the worn fabric, holding it for a second. For a moment, Arthur thinks he’s going to do something. Stand up and push it aside like he does just before they go to bed on nights when they aren’t too exhausted and don’t want to just fall down and sleep until the sun rises and sets again. “But your taste is questionable. And, if you plan on stealing my shirt, you should get some that match.”

As though fashion is a priority here. As though fashion is ever really a priority to anyone but the rich.

Arthur smiles, tries to suppress a laugh and fails as he pulls Charles’ hand away from his shirt, catches it before it can return to Charles’ side and brings it to his lips. A soft kiss placed on the back of his hand, another placed against the palm where the scar lies.

“I’ll trust your judgment, then, if you keep lettin’ me steal your shirt.”

“Always,” Charles says.

_ Always. _

**12:57 P.M.**

On the days that Charles doesn’t come to town with him, or on the rare days that Charles goes instead of Arthur, they always see the other off. Usually, it is Charles staying to continue work on the farm. Arthur isn’t better with people, but he is the one that prefers to make the long trip to and from the closest town. On those days, they always lean down from their horse, leaving the other with a kiss and a promise of a quick return and a safe trip. Today, they send those wishes off to the animals. Arthur telling Daisy and Luna to get along with each other on their way out, talking like a parent who knows they’ll have to come home and scold their child because they didn’t listen. Charles laughs, tells him to stop as they leave. The cat watching through the window, the dog sitting unhappily at the front door, not pleased that her owners have left her behind once again.

The trip to town isn’t terrible—it never has been. Arthur likes it. He likes watching the seasons change when he goes. The shift in the color of the leaves on the trees along the path, watching as they slowly fall and make them bare, filling the branches with snow. The shift isn’t noticeable until it’s there. A sudden realization months down the line that the leaves are no longer a vibrant green but have faded to orange or red or brown. Or that the path is littered with them less than a few weeks later, that the sky is so much brighter because it’s only being filtered through bare branches.

When Arthur is on his own, he makes this trip quick. Has Peaches go a little faster down the dirt road so he can return back to his family a little quicker. But with Charles at his side, they go slow. It takes them an hour to descend from their farm up on the cliff and down to the cluster of houses and into the rows of shops and stores. Their words filling the air, separated only by the sound of hooves. The two side by side, sometimes stretching their hands across the space to hold the other’s until they get too close to civilization that they drop them by their sides, hold onto their reins, pretend that they are friends instead of lovers.

Once, before they had left the gang, when they were together in the woods, sprawled out on a blanket they had brought, Arthur tracing the shape and curves of Charles’ face like he needed to memorize them, as if he could ever forget or could ever have the capacity to get his features quite right in a picture—he could never do Charles’ beauty justice—he had asked Charles, inadvertently, if he would marry him.

His actual question was:  _ Do you want to get married? _

And it wasn’t supposed to be a proposal, it was simply an attempt to ask how Charles  _ felt  _ about marriage. What his thoughts were on the topic, even if they were incapable of actually getting married. Even if it would be just a dream scattered in the stars with their once fictional fantasy of a farm up on a cliff.

But Charles had said yes and teased him and pressed kisses against his skin and told him that they couldn’t. Not because of the laws, not because it would be impossible, but because Arthur hadn’t told Charles he loved him yet. They hadn’t quite gotten there, even if he felt it. Even if he had felt it for months before their first kiss. It was hard, getting the words out, and every time he went to say them he couldn’t because he had this fear that Charles would suddenly reject him. Turn him around and say  _ sorry, this wasn’t supposed to be like that. _

It took him exactly a day to get the courage to say them after that. The two packing up their bags and getting ready to return to Clemens Point. Arthur had stopped him, moved in close, told Charles to close his eyes because for some reason that felt easier to say it out loud and when he did, Charles kissed him. He kissed him for a long time before breaking it away and saying it back and after that, it was easy as ever to say those words. Knowing that Charles felt it too, knowing that his fear was a mistake.

And, ever since then, they have referred to one another as their husband in private. Like a joke, almost. But he knows if they could’ve gotten married, they would’ve. He knows that the second they can, if he’s alive to see the day, they will.

In his head, when he thinks of Charles, he doesn’t always know what to call him.  _ Lover  _ sometimes seems strange. Wrong in some way, as though they exist in each other’s lives only for sex when it is so much more than that.  _ Friend  _ does not begin to cover it—even if Arthur knows how important a friend can be to someone. Charles isn’t a friend. He isn’t a lover. He’s his husband and his soulmate and it hurts sometimes when he is reminded of the fact that their hands have to break away and they can’t stand too close and Arthur can’t kiss him when he’s doing something stupidly cute—which is  _ always.  _ He doesn’t know if the nature of his actions will ever be accepted by anyone, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to breathe properly until it is. He doesn’t know if he’ll manage a day without the worry or if he’ll live to see the day they can be happy together without hiding it. He hopes he does, because there is some small part of him that wants to show Charles off to everyone. Show every single person how absolutely amazing and incredible his husband is.

**3:25 P.M.**

They split up when they get to town. Arthur heads to replenish the little ammunition they’ve used and Charles disappears down to the general store with the list. Arthur meets up with him, helping fill in the gap of items that Charles has missed. They’re quiet in the store, their conversation little and only pertaining to specifics of what they need to buy. It’s safer that way, in his opinion. Neither of them are really talkers. Charles is quiet—Arthur only starts to get talkative when he’s drunk or tired. He remembers the nights, blurry and vague, of the times he’s spat out every story in his life. Laying them all out there for Charles to hear. He remembers having them said in return, only trusted when Arthur was laying against his chest and there were arms wrapped around him, like Charles had to hold onto him in fear that whatever he could say would make Arthur leave.

Nothing would, he thinks. Besides for a very short list of things he knows Charles would never be capable of doing. He trusts him. He trusted him enough to say some of the worst things that happened to him, or that he had done to others. He trusted him enough to even say the memories he was fond of, the ones that used to make him happy but now make his smile disappears and his heart hurt and his body ache with the want to go back in time to experience it again because it was  _ fun  _ and  _ nice  _ and he was  _ happy. _

He’s happy now, but it’s different. He wouldn’t trade Charles for the world. But he misses things, sometimes. He misses the gang. He misses the people. He misses the life. He misses things before they got so messy and complicated, before Charles every showed up in his life. He wouldn’t trade Charles for the world, but he misses things and he misses people and he’s allowed to think both of those things. It took him years to accept that, to understand that. That he can love more than one thing at a time, even if one of those things is gone, even if he has the thing he loves an infinite amount more.

They don’t talk in the store because Arthur is afraid of accidentally saying things. Accidentally calling Charles by a nickname or making a joke that is a little too flirtatious—although all of his flirting usually leads to his face turning red and regretting every word and second of it until he can gauge whether or not Charles is smiling out of pity or not. Although, it doesn’t really matter, as long as he gets Charles to smile.

He keeps his distance, too. Even though he knows how scared he is of being caught, there is always this little bit of a fear in the back of his head that he’ll do something impulsive and stupid. Reach out to Charles or lean against him or try and kiss him. He’s terrified of slipping up.

He doesn’t drink as much as he used to—certainly not here in town. Even when he and Charles have argued and he came here for the isolation and the knowing that Charles wouldn’t be able to do anything about his anger until it subsided enough he could think clearly and come home, he refused to drink. The thought of getting a little too drunk and saying things without being able to think them through or hold back was a threat that he couldn’t handle.

He stopped getting drunk with the gang after he started a relationship with Charles. He stopped drinking almost entirely. He never thought of it as an addiction he needed to quit—not like he’d seen with others—he saw it only as an oppurtunity to ruin everything. Maybe, he thinks, it’s unhealthy to consider he would have lowered his inhibitions enough to slip up and tell the tales of Charles when he’d never done the same with the girls he’d been with, but Charles was different. He could talk to others about the girls, even if he would refuse to divulge the vulgar details that the other men always were keen on hearing. He could at least say something about them. But he can’t say a single thing about Charles to anyone. Sometimes it’s nice, having a little private secret, something all to himself, but he is always pushed back to that one singular thing though:

That he  _ wants  _ to tell people about him.

He wrote letters to Abigail when they first came here. The only person he really kept in contact with because he knew she could be the most trusted. He would write in great detail about a woman he met. Her name was left blank, only details that he could share that wouldn’t feel like a lie. It wasn’t until him and Charles were out wandering the forest that he decided to give this fictional, albeit not-so-fictional, version of Charles he told her about. His name was Rose in the letters. Not the flowers that they found when they were wandering through the trees, but the ones that Charles told him he liked. Thorns and all. Not his favorite—which Arthur still doesn’t know—but ones he liked enough to comment on, to give that little piece of information to Arthur. Something that felt valuable and personal and something he couldn’t really comment on any further than that he liked that he knew this fact. Something nobody else probably knows and it was all his. Not even his favorite flower but still something special to him.

Abigail and Rose are the closest he gets to talking about the great love of his life, and it isn’t enough.

But he does tell Abigail something that makes him wonder if she could ever connect the dots. Figure out when the two of them left, figure out that the love he wrote about could be connected to someone like him. It seems so obvious to Arthur and he it makes him wonder if everyone is just placating the two of them by pretending it’s a secret still, which is a fear in and of itself. He never felt so deathly terrified of being in love until it came to Charles. He tells Abigail this, tells her that he doesn’t know if he’s ever been properly in love until now. Tells her that he’s been attracted to girls before, attracted to their personalities and their looks and liked them, but he’s never felt quite like  _ this _ .

He words it as girls in his letters, but he means boys. Men. He’s found them attractive. He’s found them nice. He’s had dreams that he shook off because he never knew what to make of them. They were feelings that he thought of as to be hidden away. Not to be talked about. He liked girls. Slept with women. Thought he loved women, thinks maybe that just because he’s in love with Charles this much it shouldn’t invalidate those relationships he had before. But he was never in a relationship with a man. He kissed one, once, when he was drunk. Late at night. A stranger he never saw again. He kissed Arthur back, and it was the last of it. The only other man he’s kissed is Charles and it was a thousand times better. Because he was sober or because he’s in love, he still isn’t sure.

It’s confusing and complex and he’s never quite sure how to get the words out properly. He has to rewrite every letter to Abigail ten times and burn the rest to make sure nobody finds them. The first draft always starts with the truth, always starts with the correct name and the correct pronouns. Sometimes he winds in stories, sometimes he writes twenty pages about the grand love story between them before he realizes if she didn’t think of them as wrong, she would be bored of the contents at the very least. The last one is always short. Always just a page. Always just a paragraph in regards to  _ Rose. _

But it helps. It isn’t enough, but it helps.

**3:49 P.M.**

“Here,” Charles says, picking out a pair of suspenders. Blue and white. Striped. New and shiny compared to the ones he has, but anything would likely be considered new and shiny next to the ones on his body. Worn nearly every day. Plain black. Goes with everything.

Blue and white don’t.

But Charles picks them out and that’s all he cares, so they buy the blue and white suspenders and adds it to his pack before they leave. Tomorrow morning, when he makes sure Charles doesn’t leave him alone in the bed, when they get ready for their day, he’ll put them on. Charles will fasten them properly for Arthur, like he always does, even if they clash with his shirt, and Arthur will find a sense of peace in the fact that they can have this with each other. Charles always fastens his suspenders, and Arthur always buttons up Charles’ shirt. A trade in intimacy. Something small that he finds comforting.

He wants tomorrow morning to come, just so he can have that. He missed it today. It feels like a crime. Maybe the punishment tonight will be the reversal. Charles taking the suspenders off, Arthur unbuttoning his shirt. Not leaving them in the basket while they change into more comfortable clothes to rest in but left on the floor while they stumble their way to the bed because they won’t be able to separate.

“Ready to head home?”

“Always,” Charles says with a smile. Missing the laugh that he might have if they weren’t around the company of strangers.

And Arthur can’t help but agree. Not really the desire to be safe in his own home, just the desire to be away from prying eyes, although, maybe, they are one in the same. It isn’t his need to get back to be able to be with Charles in the way he isn’t allowed here, it’s the need to get back so the two of them can fall back into who they really are again. They have their guards up around others and it isn’t just their relationship they keep hidden, it’s little bits and peices of themselves. Charles grows a little quieter, Arthur grows a little angrier. When they get home, the anger and the quiet will slip away. Charles will start to comment on something that he might’ve seen in town that will likely fall down a path of banter and jokes that they’ve grown accustomed to. They’ll put their newly purchased goods up on their shelves and in the cabinets and cupboards and laugh about something stupid and they will fall back into forgetting the uncomfortable nature of being around others and focus on only the comforting nature of being with each other.

**4:59 P.M.**

Daisy is ecstatic that they’re home. Arthur and Charles try to put the things away while she runs around the kitchen at top speed, stopping every second to turn around again because there isn’t enough room for her to fully sprint back and forth with her happiness like she would prefer. Arthur sneaks her a treat when Charles isn’t looking, only to have to sneak another to Luna when she watches him perturbed and envious in her spot by the window, where she has likely not moved since her meal five hours prior. 

They found Luna three months ago. Wandering along the paths to and from the town below. The whites of her fur brown and muddy from the recent rainstorm the night before. She followed them first, looking up at the two of them and seemingly trying to match the speed of the horses. Slowing down sometimes only to race on up ahead and wait for them to catch up. Arthur doesn’t know if she belonged to someone. He can’t imagine she did, her fur matted and out in the middle of nowhere. She would’ve been nothing more than something for the two of them to remark on once every few months until her presence was completely forgotten, except—

Except she was there when they packed their bags and left town again. She followed them back up into the hills, up into their little plot of land. Followed them around and stuck to the outdoors of their place. Amused by the two chickens but never getting close. Just watching. Waiting.

She lived out on their farm for a month before Charles let her inside and Arthur didn’t say anything on the subject. If Charles wasn’t going to sneak her in that night, he would’ve. Not for the storm or for the weather, just because having her around felt right.

Charles named her, but it was Arthur that commented on the mark on her leg. Black fur but in the shape of a moon, like a crescent but a little fuller. Not quite perfect, but not a stretch to consider it.  _ Luna,  _ Charles said,  _ we can name her Luna.  _ And it wasn’t as if Arthur had any other options that would be better. 

Arthur made the bed for her after noticing her favorite spot was up on the counter, watching them from the window. Charles took one of Arthur’s old shirts, teasing him about how it didn’t fit anymore, that Luna would prefer the red plaid to be made into a bed for her. And it was, complete with a little pillow that took Arthur three weeks to sew together properly.

Daisy was different. They didn’t seek her out, but they didn’t stumble upon her entirely accidentally either. Charles would come back from town sometimes and talk about the man he saw, never repeating the things he said or the things he did, but alluding enough that Arthur could grasp the basics. It was like the buffalo. The anger that fueled him. Not quite the same in how present it was but still there. The same quality to it even if not the same quantity.

Arthur managed to leave the house once without Charles ever knowing. Sneaking out of the place in the middle of the night, leaving Charles snoring quietly behind. He doesn’t know why he decided to do it. He just had to. It felt like an exchange for letting one of the poachers go. Like he had failed Charles that day, not living up to the cold-blooded murderer that he knew everyone likely saw him as.

The man in town didn’t have a wife or kids. He lived alone above a store that sold overpriced goods. It was easy sneaking in and out unseen. It was not so easy walking down the streets back to where he left Peaches, only to turn around again and walk back in. Stepping around the puddles of blood, scooping up the dog, leaving again.

He doesn’t remember where the name  _ Daisy  _ came from. It just happened. Sprung from his lips one day and stuck. Charles knew what he did—it would’ve been impossible not to. It was in the papers, talked about for weeks. The store wasn’t robbed. The dog was the only thing that was taken, other than the man’s life. There are still rumors about it. He can still hear the whispers sometimes when he walks past the building, emptied out and closed down. Someday, someone might take it over again. Open it as another shop, fill the shelves with something else or maybe even the same over-priced goods. It doesn’t matter to him.

Daisy is safe now. Happy. Dopey in that manner.

There are many times in Arthur’s life where he had apologized for things he didn’t know what exactly he did that was wrong simply to avoid conflict. To defuse whatever situation had accidentally occurred. Better to smooth things over even if the apology wasn’t exactly genuine. There are few times, however, when he has apologized authentically. There are even rarer times when two coincide. He didn’t know if Charles was angry at him for what he did. He doesn’t know exactly what he was saying he was sorry for, just that he was serious when he said it. Whispering quietly when he stepped back in the house at dawn and Charles was awake and waiting for him with arms crossed.

He still isn’t sure if Charles forgave him that night or not. If it was when the sun was fully in the sky and the light of day showed the healing cuts and marks on Daisy, if it was weeks and weeks later when she stopped being so frightened of them and started jumping up into their bed in the morning to wake them when she determined they’d slept too long. He doesn’t know if Charles was ever really angry at him beyond the fact that he left in the middle of the night or if he was angry about Arthur killing that man.

Sometimes, he’s not even sure if Charles has forgiven him at all. The killing was supposed to end when they left the gang. Arthur betrayed and broke the one rule he never thought would be a problem. He worries and he worries and he worries that someday when they fight again and it gets worse, it’ll be brought up and it won’t matter how much Charles laughs and smiles and loves that dog, it won’t matter that her owner hurt her again and again, it will only matter that Arthur did something against their very small list of rules.

“Are you alright?”

“Thinkin’,” Arthur says simply, turning away from the animals, back to the task at hand. Cans on the shelf by the window, organized in no real manner except like items together. It’s almost as if he had forgotten where he was. Simultaneously back on that night he first brought Daisy back and somehow transported to the future where all Arthur had left was an old dog and an empty cabin. “Why?”

“You seem… strange.”

“Strange?”

“You’ve been thinking a lot today, haven’t you?”

“’Course,” he says. “Always.”

Always, because the two of them are both thinkers. Charles is always lost in thought, and so is Arthur. Always spiraling back into something that isn’t necessary to delve too deep into. But Arthur’s mind is like dodging mines buried in a field. Running too and from every and any topic he can rest on for even a moment. It never stops. It’s why his journal always stays tucked beside him, always has something written on the page even if he’d done nothing in the day that would be worthy of the limited quantities of ink and the few pages left. There is always something because there are always words and the words are like a weight on his chest that he can never quite get rid of. Sometimes they fill up until his head hurts, so many crammed into his skull that he worries if he doesn’t empty them out they might suffocate him.

He doesn’t know if it’s the same with Charles, but he knows the two of them are both people that think too much. It’s a curse. Letting him start to believe that Charles’ reassurances or his words might be a lie or a front for something else. Like his fear that everybody knows about the two of them but are pretending they don’t as if to allow them their secret relationship. The idea that he might be a joke to somebody. That this might be a joke to someone.

“Need something to clear your mind?”

He nods, but he doesn’t know what can be provided. There is so much work here that can busy his hands but not his thoughts. It leaves them to wander unchecked. Charles moves a little closer. One step and he’s in Arthur’s space, tipping his chin up, turning him away from the counter in that one tiny action, letting Arthur fall into his space. The kiss is soft. A thousand words left unspoken in it. After their second kiss, when Charles leaned in, when they kissed for what felt simultaneously like hours and seconds, he had pulled away and stayed close to Arthur like he is now. Holding him gently, holding his face like he’s afraid that Arthur might disappear or break.

Then, the first words out of his mouth, were a stream of  _ I can’t stop thinking about you.  _ Examples given a thousand times over how Charles was so caught up in the fact Arthur kissed him he couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t hunt right. Got lost on his trips to and from the forest and the camp because he’d missed where he was supposed to turn and the trees blurred together. It was almost funny, at the time, listening to Charles almost scold him for it. Amusing in the sense that at least Arthur wasn’t alone in the effect they have on each other.

But this time, Charles doesn’t say anything. But he holds Arthur in the same way. Like he might break.

“You want to organize these?” Charles says quietly, and the answer is a very hard no. Arthur doesn’t care for making things perfect and lined up. He doesn’t care if the canned peaches come after or before canned beans. But he nods again anyways. Lets Charles drift from his arms as he moves the things on the shelf back to the counter. Reciting the alphabet over and over again every time he needs to place something on the shelf.

It keeps his mind occupied in the most basic manner, but that’s all he really needs. Something to help break up the thoughts. Keep them divided so he can have a moment of relief. It won’t be enough. He knows how quickly he is moving through this, knows that by the time Charles is back outside, taking the clothes off the line and bringing them in again, that he will be done. But it’s nice, at least, to have a moment of reprieve.

**6:10 P.M.**

Charles is a better cook than him. It’s not something that Arthur thought would be a point of contest between them, but sometimes it’s annoying how easy it is for Charles to put together a meal without much of a second thought. The kitchen fills with them talking. Mostly Charles, this time. Arthur listening to him talk about anything and everything while he peels potatoes, cuts them into what he thinks is the closest he will get to neat cubes. It helps, not being the one relied upon to do the conversation. It helps give him a break, helps him stock up on the inconsequential things to think about instead of the heavy subjects.

They talk about the barn. The horses. The chickens and their coop. Making the garden a little bit bigger—which Arthur knows he means quite a bit bigger. When their next hunting trip might be and whether or not they should exchange it with a trip out into the river. If they should work harder on repairing the wagon or if they should keep their attention towards fixing the fence around the vague structure of a barn, since they’ve managed this long without needing the wagon even once.

The conversation continues after dinner is done, the two of them slipping past the work needing to be done and passing memories back and forth of their time with the gang. Stories Arthur has before Charles was ever a part of it, returned with stories from Charles’ childhood. Jokes passed back and forth. Interests unfurled to be discussed. Things that happened when they were in town that they finally feel comfortable laughing about or commenting on now that the prying eyes and ears of strangers aren’t here to judge them.

And when they’re done, the conversation continues. Laughs started to replaced with kisses against the back of Arthur’s head as he takes away the dishes to be cleaned. Letting Charles disappear from his side and out to work on the barn. Watching him from afar. Blurry and shadowed as the sun starts to blind him during it’s descent behind the tree line. When he’s done, he’ll chase after Charles like he always does. Appearing in the barn with him, helping put together the walls. Handing over tools when necessary, holding things in place. More work done, a few steps closer to this being complete. A few steps closer to being able to convince Charles more and more that a day spent in bed together is acceptable now that their list of chores has been narrowed down.

_ Tomorrow.  _ Tomorrow he’ll convince him for a day off. Stay in bed for as long as the morning will allow and then sit out on the boat and instead of fishing, they can just look up at the sky. Exist together without the pressure of doing something. And when night falls, the two of them can come back to the cabin, lay out blankets on the grass like they had when they first arrived here. Listen to the crackle of the fire and watch the night sky above them. Stars twinkling, the moon glowing bright. They can pass false stories back and forth like they had before. Things that they would come up with to explain a constellation that they both knew wasn’t official in any manner, but something that would belong to just the two of them.

If he asks Charles enough times, if he has lips pressed against his throat as he details his plans and hands wandering and distracting from the repercussions of missing a day of work, Charles might agree. It’s a mischevious plan, but it isn’t as though Charles has managed to convince him to do things with the promise of sex in exchange.

**8:31 P.M.**

It’s a nasty splinter—if it can still be called that. The piece of wood lodged into his hand is bigger than what he considers most splinters to be like. Charles tells him to look away, watch the dark waters of the river while he plucks it from his hand. He tries. Fails. Looks back at the last second when it’s pulled from his hand and he flinches and tenses, making the pain of it coming out worse.

“Told you to wear gloves,” Charles says, looking up at him. “Hold still.”

He doesn’t want to hold still. There’s blood trailing across his palm in a sickly manner. Worse than he had expected when Charles kept referring to this as a splinter. Still, he argues even as Charles wraps his hand up.

“It was one piece of wood. How was I s’posed to know the first thing I picked up was going to—”

Charles silences him with the kiss against his bandaged hand. He doesn’t know why it does. It’s nothing new. It’s happened before. An echo of a thing Charles used to do every day for months, but hadn’t recently. The habit dropped once the wound turned to a scar and Charles could hold his hand again. Maybe it’s the expression on his face. The soft smile and the way it somehow eases the pain away. Not by much. It’s still there. The pain is always there, no matter how hard Charles tries to help soothe it away.

“Don’t do that,” he says quietly, pulling his hand away.

“Do what?”

“Distract me.”

“I’m distracting you?”

Charles is  _ always  _ distracting him. From the moment they met until now. He can’t even remember what his poorly constructed argument against gloves and splinters are anymore. It’s lost on him. Disappeared somewhere in the seconds that Charles pulled his palm to his lips.

_ Distracting _ .

“I’m supposed to win this argument,” he says quietly, but Charles is moving a little closer, leaving a kiss against his jaw.

“I didn’t realize we were arguing.”

“That’s because you’re usin’ a different tactic.”

“Oh?”

“It should be outlawed.”

“Maybe it is,” Charles says, pulling Arthur away from the table and against him. And it’s easy to fall against the line of his body, curving into his touch, lifting his chin up so Charles has access to the space of skin left bare above the collar of his shirt. “We are outlaws, technically. I’m just doing my part. Unless you want me to stop?”

“Distracting me from the pain or the argument?”

“Both.”

Arthur sighs, and he can’t tell where it lies on the spectrum. If he’s sighing into Charles or sighing at the fact he can no longer keep this stupid petty thing up any longer.

“Don’t stop.”

Charles doesn’t. Not at first. He kisses Arthur’s neck, pushes him back up against the table until he’s helping him up onto the surface. There will be marks on his neck tomorrow, ones he wasn’t able to have before in fear of people realizing who caused them. He didn’t even want to risk hiding them. They were good at avoiding marks where people could see them. Charles would leave them elsewhere on his body, trails of them down his chest. Covering his torso like a pattern. Hidden by the shirt that was never taken off in front of the others.

Here, he can avoid going into town until the marks fade. Here, he can rest in comfort and peace in knowing that the privacy of the trees and the walls will do most of the work for him. Charles slips a hand down his shirt, unbuttoning it, resting his palm against Arthur’s chest, settling where his heart is beating a little faster than it was before.

And then he stops and pulls away, and Arthur feels himself grow with the guilt of disappointment.

“We have work to do.”

“I’m injured,” he says quietly. “You should drop everything and take care of me.”

Charles smiles and it’s that magical smile he always has. The one intertwined with the laugh, the one intertwined with his words. The thing that is embedded in his soul, the thing that links Arthur to him. The little bit of magic that he possesses.  _ Enchanting.  _ He’s always heard girls be described as such but always found it such an odd little adjective. It makes sense when it comes to Charles. As though he’s so—

So  _ perfect  _ and so  _ wonderful  _ and so  _ incredible  _ and just so  _ much  _ that he can’t possibly be human.

Enchanting and magical. The thing that makes Arthur incapable of leaving his side.

It’s reaffirmed when Charles takes his hand, pressing a kiss against the bandages again. He could do it a million times and it would still cause the same feeling to flutter through him. Like the first time Charles wrapped his arms around his waist from behind him, the first time he left a kiss against his shoulder, the first time they held hands or the first time they did things that couldn’t belong to any other meaning than the fact that they love each other. Intimate things that felt more intimate than they had when Arthur was with anyone else. Like a little schoolgirl—butterflies in his stomach. Like a woman reading one of those beat-up paperbacks that held lewd and vulgar details about things that they shouldn’t have been caught reading.

“Head back to the cabin. I’ll wrap things up here.”

“I can help—”

“Head back,” Charles repeats, leaning forward, pressing a kiss against his cheek. “It’ll only take a second.”

**9:20 P.M.**

He busies himself while he waits for Charles. Clothes folded and hanged and put away. Not as carefully or as methodically as he can, but rushed. Shirts that probably should’ve been put on hangers instead left folded and creased in the drawer. The blanket for Daisy’s bed folded crookedly and placed over the small mattress in the kitchen. A kiss pressed to the top of Luna’s head as she decides to finally leave her window and head into the outdoors, ready to chase after rats and fireflies.

The sun is almost entirely set, a lantern lighting up the bedroom as he smooths out the blankets and lays down on his side, clothes already left in the basket to be added to the wash for the next day. He can hear the soft patter of rain outside the window as he chooses a loose shirt stolen from Charles’ section again. He doesn’t think he’s drawn to Charles’ clothes because of the styles. He likes that they fit a little larger, likes that they feel more comforting than his own. Somehow, like they belong to him more than his own shirts do. Mostly, though, he thinks he just likes feeling close to him even when he’s not around. There have been times when Charles leaves for long hunting trips, disappearing for a week and leaving Arthur behind. He doesn’t wear anything other than the few shirts Charles has left behind. A little piece of him kept here with Arthur.

The first time he stole one of his shirts was just a short time after they got together. The first time they went on a trip out to hunt together, knowing full well that it was going to lead to something else. It almost wasn’t going to be their first time together. After their second kiss came the third. Rushed even though they had all the time in the world. The day after they’d settled at Clemens Point. Off in the area where it was quiet and the others were asleep or far enough away they couldn’t hear or see. The moment they saw each other they collided into one another, kissing like they hadn’t been able to in years. It was like he was dying. It was like it was going to be the last chance they had to be together.

It wasn’t just their third kiss, it was their fourth and their fifth and their sixth. So many that Arthur started to lose count even though he wanted to memorize every interaction they had together in the fear that he’d someday lose Charles forever. It was risky and stupid what they were doing. Continued to be risky and stupid until they finally left the gang and the worry started to dissipate. But at the time, Arthur wanted everything. He didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to wait another week or another day or another minute until they could be together.

They almost had sex. Almost had their first time pressed against trees in the dark, suffocating their noises so they didn’t draw attention to themselves. The very act of how it started was the reason it ended. Charles telling him he didn’t want to rush this. Didn’t want the first time to be something that was quick and forgotten. He wanted to draw it out. He wanted it to be something they could savor. It was impossible for Arthur to disagree, even if he felt the urgency of wanting it then. But he agreed. Let their kissing return to something a little less fervent. Let themselves be something a little less rushed. Learn the way Charles' mouth moved against his own, learned how far he had to tilt upwards and how easy his body curved against Charles, how perfectly it fit there, in his arms.

And a week later, when they left to go hunting, Charles did exactly what he said he would. Laying Arthur out on the blanket, taking his time, leaving marks against his torso, against his thighs. Making sure that it didn’t hurt. That the only painful thing about it was that Charles was slow and Arthur wanted to beg him to go faster. It was his first time with a man, but it wasn’t something that was on his mind. The thing he thought about the most was that it was Charles. That the delicate nature of the two of them together, the way Charles treated him with a tenderness that he was often never afforded, felt like he really might break.

It was slow, with kisses that lasted forever, with hands that touched every part of his body. Learning which spots made Arthur make a noise or move in a way that caused a smile to form on Charles’ face. Things that made Arthur act on instinct rather than hold them back based on embarrassment. He doesn’t know how much he held back that day, except the sounds. He tried his best to keep quiet because he didn’t want to get caught. Only every allowing any noises to come out when Charles was kissing him, hoping they could be quickly swallowed up in the space between. 

He did everything Charles told him. Patient and waiting until he started to voice his annoyance at how slow Charles was moving. It did little to make him speed up. It only made him laugh, only made him treat Arthur in a way that kept him on the edge for so long that when he was finally able to cum he understood what it was like when people described kisses with loved ones like explosions.

They didn’t lay there together like they do now. After sex then, they immediately got dressed and returned to whatever they were doing. Shame still something that was rooted deeply in the two of them. Fear of getting caught. Needing to pretend like nothing happened despite wanting it more and more.

Now is better. Maybe no longer sex under the stars but they get to lay with each other for hours, dozing off to sleep without having to budge from where they are.

But then, Arthur stole Charles shirt. On accident, at first. The fabric the same color. Pulled over his head before he realized it didn’t fit quite right. And then he stayed there, lingered with it against his skin, liking the feel of cotton, breathing in the soft scent of Charles embedded into the dark blue. He couldn’t wear it back to camp around the others, but Charles let him steal it for their hunting trip. Even let him steal it into his pack of things and return it only to take it back every time he had the chance. Now it sits in Arthur’s wardrobe, like it always belonged to him.

He likes the idea of that. That they always belonged to one another. Just waiting to find each other. Reunite themselves across timelines.

He doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Never has. Probably never will. But he is absolutely certain that soulmates are real. He doesn’t believe he could love someone this deeply without feeling like it surpassed the laws of nature. It must cross space and time. They must be woven together like two people created from the same star. They’d have to be. Charles got all the good parts. The magic and the beauty and everything in between and Arthur got whatever was leftover. He is constantly amazed when Charles tells him he loves him. Forever and always surprised, but grateful.

Always grateful.

**10:03 P.M.**

The way he jolts when he feels a hand on his shoulder tells him he was asleep. Not for long. Not enough for a dream to start. But enough that he drifted off. That time passed. It’s Charles’ hand on his shoulder that wakes him, but the sound of the rain having grown louder, of the distant thunder rumbling, the lightning flashing outside the window, makes his eyes blink open.

“You’re wet,” he mumbles, reaching out to touch the sleeve of Charles’ shirt.

“Go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You owe me a distraction,” Arthur says quietly, but his eyes close again and he curls up against the pillow, listening to the sound of feet shuffling across the floorboards.

“Tomorrow. You’re tired.”

He’s always tired. It’s the curse of a life like this. Building everything from scratch. Getting in over their heads. Trying to make everything perfect and sustainable. Arthur loves it—but it’s  _ exhausting. _

“I need it now,” he whispers. His head feels like it’s full of ghosts. People lingering in the recesses of his mind, coming back to taunt him. “Distract me, Charles.”

He doesn’t get a response, which is response enough. The time has passed. When he opens his eyes, he watches Charles get dressed, too tired to move or do anything when on most nights he might’ve reached over to him to help shed the clothes off his body or simply pull him into bed before he could replace them with nightwear. But Charles is right. He’s too tired, just like the night before. He can hardly keep his eyes open, the exhaustion finally settling in the moment he got a chance to rest his head.

“Tomorrow?” Arthur asks, the word coming out rough and broken. “Promise?”

“We can do whatever you want tomorrow,” Charles returns, climbing into the bed beside him, pulling Arthur up against his body. He waits, tilting his head slightly so Charles can leave a kiss against his forehead and it makes him sigh, the same kind of dreamy sigh that he has whenever they get to finally settle down for the night. “I won’t leave you.”

“Never?” he asks, even though he knows Charles is only saying it to apply for tomorrow morning and not for the endless stretch of days ahead of them.

“Never.”

“Stay by my side forever?”

“Always, Arthur,” Charles whispers. “I promise.”

He buries his face against his chest, eyes closing again as the blanket is drawn around them tighter. And, like always, he wonders how he managed this. How he slipped away from the gang and arrived here. How easy it was to make that decision. If Charles hadn’t been the one to ask, he thinks he would’ve said no. He thinks Charles is the only one that could get him to agree to this. Even if they weren’t in love like this. Even if their love was purely platonic, he would’ve agreed. He thinks he would follow Charles to the end of the earth and back again.

“I love you,” he says, trusting the words in the dark and the shadows, said into Charles skin like it can keep it a secret there. Like Charles is the only person he could ever really properly trust with those words.

“I love you too. Get some rest, will you, Arthur?”

He nods, and he’s already drifting off. Falling back into a dreamless sleep, the only thing lingering in the back of his mind now that feeling of Charles beside him. Warm and wrapped so close. The trail of the hand up and down his back, the tenderness of that touch. Something he’s never been afforded before. And he knows tomorrow and the next day and the next until the days turn into years and the years turn into lifetimes that they will always be together. They have to be. He has to believe that. He has to believe in soulmates. He has to believe that they are meant to be together until the end of time. Their souls are linked together. He can feel it in the way he fits so perfectly beside Charles’ body. He can feel it when they kiss.

But even if they aren’t soulmates, even if their love doesn’t get written in the history books, it doesn’t negate how important it is to him. How important Charles is to him.

_ Tomorrow.  _ The promise echoes in the back of his mind. His plan reforming in his head. Hours spent on the shore or in the boat on the river. Turning it into a rainy day that the two of them can lounge around in doors, the cool air a welcome break in the sweltering summer heat. Standing outside in the rain to complete the few chores necessary to keep their day in order and their list from growing too unmanageable. He can fall asleep imagining Charles finding him in the rain like he has done a hundred times before, holding him close and kissing him like it might be their last. With the same sense of urgency and tenderness that they always have.

_ Always. Always. Always. _

**Author's Note:**

> [hmu on my tumblr](https://norchloe.tumblr.com/)


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